


For Emily

by tnnyoh



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Emsider - Relationship - Freeform, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 12:12:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9657002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnnyoh/pseuds/tnnyoh
Summary: Emily is visited by the Outsider, which leaves more questions than answers





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This may or may not become part of a longer fic/series fic if I actually get anyone caring about it.

Emily opened her eyes but saw only darkness around her "What the hell?" She said, standing up and looking for any sign of light  
I'm in the void again she thought  
"I know where I am" She said out loud, taking a few steps forward on the platform, the sound of her footsteps echoing into the nothingness "You might as well show yourself"  
"You're wish is my command, Empress Kaldwin" a voice said behind her, she turned around, startled "By the void!" She said "Can you not do that?"  
He responded by disappearing into nothingness and reappearing sitting on the edge of a table that was floating a few inches of the platform  
Emily walked towards the table until she was right in front of him, She studied him "What are you?" She said, rather bluntly  
"I assume you've heard the myths" He spoke softly, but there was an edge to his voice that Emily associated with youth  
"Well of course, everyone has heard the myths... The Void.. The Outsider... But I never thought any of it was real, I just thought it was stories told by the Overseers to be certain people stayed out of trouble"  
"All your life you've been hearing of stories designed to keep you out of trouble, and where are you right now?" He disappeared from in front of her and reappeared right beside her, leaning closer to her ear "You've found yourself in such a mess"  
She whipped around to face him but he had disappeared again "I did not put myself in this situation" She said to the darkness, unable to see where he went  
"I am a victim in this!" She shouted  
"I have been watching the world for a very very long time Empress Emily... And yet I have yet to see anyone truly a victim in their stories, Even those who have once been victims become something... else" He appeared right in front of her yet again  
"What are you saying?" She asked, crossing her arms  
"You'll see" He gave her a look that she could almost mistake for a smirk, but he was a mythical void creature, She wasn't even sure if they could smirk... She sensed that he was going to vanish again and before she could stop herself she reached out and grabbed his hand "Knock it off" She said, He looked down at her hand clasping his and then looked back up at her, no response  
She moved her hand away slowly "If you want to help me, help, I don't know what I'm supposed to do."  
"I merely watch events unfold, I do not intervene with them"  
She glared at him "Yeah except you drag people into this.. this place, into here and you... you give them powers but you don't give them answers"  
"Do you have a question, Empress Emily?" He asked, still remaining in the same spot  
"I have many, and stop calling me that. I am no longer an empress"  
"For now" He said, a flicker of something across his face, Maybe... humanity? Emily thought.  
"What do you mean?" Emily asked  
The darkness around her faded and she found herself back on the boat, a slow and steady hum emanating from somewhere in her quarters, She sat up on the bed and saw on the table a rune sitting atop a note, she moved the rune and read the note

"For Emily.

\- O"


	2. A New Painting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily discusses The Outsider with an old friend

After Emily had rescued Anton Sokolov from Kirin Jishdosh's clockwork tower, She spent a lot of time to herself while waiting for new leads on where to go or what to do next, About a week after the rescue she went to speak to Anton, She knocked lightly on the door of his guest quarters  
this ship is big she thought to herself, she'd been aboard for quite some time now and still had never noticed there was more than one guest room aboard.  
"Come on in" His voice echoed on the other side of the door, she opened it and saw the old man was back to his favorite hobby, painting.  
"What are you painting, old man?" She asked, coming up behind him and putting her hand on his shoulder  
"Ehh, you know" He said, not taking his eyes off the working portrait in front of him "Just this and that, Thought this place could use some livening up."  
"It is a little dreary, isn't it?" She said, smirking slightly.  
Emily watched the man paint, she remembered when she was a little girl back at the Hounds Pitt Pub after her father had kidnapped him for the loyalists, When they got the information they needed from him and deemed him not to be harmful, He spent a lot of time in the old warehouse just painting, She looked around, he had already painted a few things that were sitting around the quarters, One in particular caught her eye  
A black eyed man floating among a sea of nothingness, complete darkness, she approached it slowly and reached out to touch it when she felt the world around her deteriorate  
"Anton Sokolov is a genius, A wonderful mind with creations that pushed your society forward, If it wasn't for him you wouldn't have many of the things that you have today" The Outsider said  
"That's a weird greeting" Emily said, feeling a bit unsettled at being pulled into The Void this way  
"Ah yes of course, How could I be so rude? Greetings Empress Emily" He said, she detected a slight tone of sarcasm, she didn't even think that was possible for a mythical being.  
"Back when I was a little kid, I found some of Anton's writings that he kept in his journal. He was always... lamenting that he never got your direct attention" Emily said, picking at something in her sleeve cuff  
"As I told your father so many years ago, If he wishes my attention, being more interesting would be a good start" He said disappearing from her view  
"So what exactly is your criteria for being interesting?" Emily asked "He's a genius, a painter who still in the last fifteen years has not been bested in talent even by the brightest of the age, And he's invented some of the most amazing technologies that are still being used as a baseline for things today" She said, She knew that there were a lot of people who did not like Sokolov for whatever reasons, but she always found the man admirable.  
The Outsider appeared again, right next to her and spoke into her eat "Not being Anton Sokolov" He said with a hint of a smile  
The darkness around her faded and she was back on the boat in Anton's guest quarters, He hadn't even noticed a thing.  
He turned around to look at her in front of his painting of The Outsider  
"You like the painting do you?" He asked  
"What?" Emily said, caught off guard "Oh!" She said "Yeah, Why do.. you paint so many?"  
"Of what? The Outsider?" He got up out of his chair to walk over to Emily and the portrait  
"Yeah" Emily said, looking at Sokolov "Back at the Hounds Pitt in your old little hangout you had a lot of paintings of him."  
"It ain't like I like painting black eyes" He grumbled "I have nightmares, I've had em for years, I guess painting him helps ground me a little bit"  
"Nightmares?" Emily said "I used to have nightmares when I was a little girl"  
"Yeah that's the thing, everyone has had them, Everyone I've talked to... Even old.. You remember back at the pub... Overseer... Martin, I think his name was"  
"Yeah?" Emily said  
"Well I found his audiographs one day and he was detailing about how he had nightmares each night for a week about The Outsider and The Void.. He was freaking out, white as a ghost... Them overseers hate em."  
"But it's just a myth, right?" She asked "The Void..."  
"I'd wager it's a lot more than a myth, There are powerful forces in this world I bet, and he's one of them" He indicated the portrat. Emily looked back at it and it seemed different, but she couldn't put her finger on why  
"Anyway, if you're about done in here I'd love to concentrate on what I'm doing." Sokolov said, heading back to his chair and his work in progress, Which as Emily saw was just another painting of The Outsider


	3. Hide and Seek

Emily had trouble sleeping that night, she was having a nightmare in which she was being chased by street thugs - She was running through the alleyways of Dunwall in a downpour from thugs who were carrying knives, She tripped and fell on her hands and knees as the thugs drew closer to her, all of them had wicked smiles and blood pouring from empty eye sockets. She tossed and turned for a while, the dreamscape changing every so often.

At one point she was on Megan's ship, watching whales jump in and out of a large ocean, She was so taken by the beauty of the whales that she didn't notice when he showed up beside her until he spoke "A magnificant creature that has been turned inside out for the progress of humanity." Emily jumped a little  
"A little warning would be nice" She said, waiting for her heart to slow down, He turned to look at her  
"A little warning would have been nice, for them... Don't you agree?" He looked out at the whales, Emily studied his expression, it looked almost.... sad? She turned her attention back towards the whales  
"You never noticed" He said "None of these people have"  
"Noticed what?" She asked, not taking her eyes off the beautiful display the whales were putting on  
"They are disappearing, slowly... But surely and not one of these people, including you or your father have noticed or taken one moment to.." He trailed off  
"To what?" Emily said  
"It seems as though bigger things cloud your vision, Bigger worries, bigger responsibilities... But I truly wonder what becomes of The Empress who doesn't see the suffering of not only the creatures in the sea but the people who live out on her very streets" He didn't move, he didn't look at her, he just stood there with his hands in his jacket pocket, watching the whales  
"Are you saying I haven't been a good Empress?" She said, starting to feel anger rising in her chest "That I deserved to have my throne stolen from me by Delilah?!"  
"Not at all" He pulled his gaze off the whales to look Emily in the face  
"Then what are you saying?" Emily said, trying to keep her voice from shaking "Can you for once just say what you mean and stop with all these riddles?!"  
"One Word" He said "Inattentive" He waved his hand through the air and through a cloud of smoke Emily was shown many images.. Scenes of people coughing up blood on the streets of Dunwall, Starving children begging their dead eyed parents for something, even scraps to eat  
"The focus of being the ruler your mother would have wanted you to be clouded your vision, You did not see any of these things, Living up in the tower has shielded your eyes from the atrocities... But Empress, They still occur" He waved his hand again, the smoke cleared and he turned back towards the whales "There are people in the world that are doing horrific things in the name of what they believe to be right... Cultists.. Thugs... Even royalty is guilty of this."  
"None of that is my fault" Emily said, unable to keep the anger out of her voice "You're standing here and showing me all of these things that I KNOW are happening... Do you think I sit on my throne all day and do nothing to try to stop these things? That I don't care for these people who have nothing?"  
"I feel that you have become complacent, Moving through one day at a time and nothing ever really changes. You feel the same way"  
"You do not get to tell me how I feel" Emily said, her hands balled up into fists at her side  
"And why not? I sense everything.. I see everything, I know what is in your head... Memories from a time long forgotten, pain, agony.. We.. You and I, Are not so different."  
"There is so much more to me than you think you know, Outsider" Emily turned away from him "I am more than this..."  
"If you want anyone to believe that, most importantly... yourself. Prove it" He tapped her on the shoulder "Prove that when an Empress is crossed she will do whatever it takes to get back what is hers... Show these people, the world.. That you do not ignore the streets running with blood, that you know the ache of the mothers and the fathers who have just lost a child from starvation, Actions speak louder than shaking fists and whispered promises, Your Majesty"  
Emily grabbed him by the wrist "Let me go" She said angrily "I don't want to stand here and be judged by something that isn't even human"  
"You have a choice Empress, You always have a choice and more often than not you choose to be here. I do not force people here, and I do not force them to stay. You can leave, but my interest in you will not wane, Nor your interest with me.. And as such you will return" Emily felt the world around her change and suddenly as if she was waking from a long dream she rose in the bed on Megan's ship  
She ran her fingers through her hair "I want to do this on my own" She said out loud "I don't need your advice"  
A whisper, barely lighter than the stale air in the room... a whisper that seemed to be older than time itself "Hide and Seek"


End file.
